The catastrophe to which our hero had reduced this wretch was so wonderful an effort of greatness, that it probably made Fortune envious of her own darling; but whether it was from this envy, or only from that known inconstancy and weakness so often and judiciously remarked in that lady’s temper, who frequently lifts men to the summit of human greatness, only

  ut lapsu graviore ruant;

certain it is, she now began to meditate mischief against Wild, who seems to have come to that period at which all heroes have arrived, and which she was resolved they never should transcend.  In short, there seems to be a certain measure of mischief and iniquity which every great man is to fill up, and then Fortune looks on him of no more use than a silkworm whose bottom is spun, and deserts him.  Mr. Blueskin was convicted the same day of robbery, by our hero, an unkindness which, though he had drawn on himself, and necessitated him to, he took greatly amiss:  as Wild, therefore, was standing near him, with that disregard and indifference which great men are too carelessly inclined to have for those whom they have ruined, Blueskin, privily drawing a knife, thrust the same into the body of our hero with such violence, that all who saw it concluded he had done his business.  And, indeed, had not fortune, not so much out of love to our hero as from a fixed resolution to accomplish a certain purpose, of which we have formerly given a hint, carefully placed his guts out of the way, he must have fallen a sacrifice to the wrath of his enemy, which, as he afterwards said, he did not deserve; for, had he been contented to have robbed and only submitted to give him the booty, he might have still continued safe and unimpeached in the gang; but, so it was, that the knife, missing noble parts (the noblest of many) the guts, perforated only the hollow of his belly, and caused no other harm than an immoderate effusion of blood, of which, though it at present weakened him, he soon after recovered.

This accident, however, was in the end attended with worse consequences:  for, as very few people (those greatest of all men, absolute princes excepted) attempt to cut the thread of human life, like the fetal sisters, merely out of wantonness and for their diversion, but rather by so doing propose to themselves the acquisition of some future good, or the avenging some past evil; and as the former of these motives did not appear probable, it put inquisitive persons on examining into the latter.  Now, as the vast schemes of Wild, when they were discovered, however great in their nature, seemed to some persons, like the projects of most other such persons, rather to be calculated for the glory of the great man himself than to redound to the general good of society, designs began to be laid by several of those who thought it principally their duty to put a stop to the future progress of our hero; and a learned judge particularly, a great enemy to this kind of greatness, procured a clause in an Act of Parliament a trap for Wild, which he soon after fell into.  By this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the hands of other people.  A law so plainly calculated for the destruction of all priggish greatness, that it was indeed impossible for our hero to avoid it.